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UNIVERSAL EDECATION, 


_ How To Purify THE BaLLot-Box 


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ADDRESS 


BENORE (THE 


/WINYAW IND IG0 SOCIETY, 


ON THEIR 128th ANNIVERSARY, 


feo mr TOWN, S..C.., 


MAY. 15th, 1882. 


By Hoy. WM. PORCHER MILES, L.L. D, 
PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE 


| 


CHARLESTON, §. C. 
THE NEWS AND COURIER BOOK PRESSES 
1882. 





i 


ORAT LON. 


Gentlemen of the Ancient and Honorable 
Winyaw Indigo Society : 


If Republican government, based upon universal sufirage, 
be not destined, after proving a farce, to become a tragedy, 
the whole people must be educated. This may seem almost 
a truism. But I fear our people hardly yet sufficiently 
realize it. It is, however, at this particular time, strongly 
forced upon the attention of the people of South Carolina 
especially, and of the whole country generally. We have 
now progressing among us trials of many of our citizens for 
alleged violations of “the sanctity of the ballot-box,” and 
the party press of the North is teeming with lectures and 
diatribes on the subject. Our own press is, equally filled 
with angry arraignment, and heated denunciations, of the 
far from impartial, and very unusual, if not unprecedented, 
manner in which those trials are conducted by judge, and 
prosecuting officer and juries, apparently in the interest of 
a political party. Toacalm and philosophic obsever these 
trials present, in more ways than one, a painful and re- 
markable spectacle. In the first place, he sees juries which 
all the defendants, at any rate, sincerely believe ave “ packed,” 
for their conviction, by a resort to extraordinary if not illegal 
means. He sees those juries composed, for the most part, of 
ignorant and uneducated, recently emancipated negro slaves 
whose stolid countenances are irresponsive to all the legal 
accumen, and logic, and eloquence of the learned and able 
counsel. He listens to arguments and appeals which are 
oftener addressed to the audience and to the public than to 
the jurymen. It is known, pretty much in advance, what 
the finding of the jury will be; that it will not be “ accord- 
ing to the law and the evidence,” but according to the poli- 


305522 


4 


tical bias and race prejudices of the jurors. He sees witness 
after witness for the prosecution branded by unimpeachable 
evidence of the most respectable citizens with perjury, im- 
morality and crime; and yet the jury, under the solemn 
obligation of their oaths, willing, on such testimony, to find 
guilty and have punished with heavy penalties of fine and 
imprisonment the most reputable and worthy men in the 
community, of blameless lives, and distinguished for their 
observance of every social and domestic duty. Oh, itisa 
spectacle passing strange in a land that boasts of its liberty 
and enlightenment! To the philosopher or statesman who 
witnesses it, the first thought apt to arise in his mind is, 
“Well, if the ballot-box has been made a ‘farce’ and a 
‘fraud’ (which God forbid!) what a fraud must be the jury 
system which can impanel such a farce of a jury as I see 
before me!’’ And his next reflection might well be: “ But 
what a farce, and a fraud, must the universal suffrage of igno- 
rance and pauperism be, which can force such men as these 
defendants, if they are indeed guilty, to counteract the over- 
whelming evils resulting from such farce and fraud by 
counter-farce and counter-fraud.” 

Oh, fellow-citizens! Oh, fellow-countrymen! It is all, 
all a sad and, sickening picture! And is there no remedy 
for all this widespread demoralization and corruption of 
juries, an\l of. citizens? Are a civilized and high-toned 
people to\be always exposed to the temptation of oppos- 
ing wrong \by wrong—of ‘‘fighting the devil with fire ”"— 
of fcdetthd to illegal and forcible means (on the plea 
of salus populi suprema lex) for ensuring good govern- 
ment, and saving in our State, to use the language of 
Governor Chamberlain, “the civilization of the Puritan and 
the Cavalier?’’ Is there no way of escape out of all these 
evils, from these unworthy “shams,” these farcical means, 
these methods of despair? Yes, I honestly believe there is 
one, anda sure one. It is to be found in the education of 
the masses. ‘We must oppose to universal suffrage universal 
education. We must transform ignorant suffrage into in- 
telligent suffrage. 


D 


It cannot be denied that the people of the South- 
ern States in which the ignorant, semi-civilized and _ half- 
brutish—however kindly and “ loyal’’—African race largely 
outnumber the Caucasia®, felt bitterly the tyranny and 
humiliation of having the property, intelligence and culture 
of their communitiésput under the heel of their pauperism, 
ignorance and barbarism. The wholesale and sudden stuf- 
fing of the babliet-box with 790,000 negro votes, in the inter- 
cal party, and with the avowed hope and belief 
fd.always be cast for that party, was some- 
thing hitherto unprecedented in the history of any civilized 
country. This debasement of the suffrage was the prolific 
germ of all our woes. It was “worse than a crime—it was 
a blunder.” It was an attempt to invert the pyramid of 
social stability. And to keep it in this unnatural position 
of unstable equilibrium it was propped and supported by 
bayonets. But the shameful spectacle revolted the moral 
sense of our conquerors, as it did that of all Christendom. 
The bayonets were withdrawn, and by the stalwart arms of 
our own people the pryamid was righted and restored to its 
natural position of stable equilibrium. But now the stalwart 
arms of our unrelenting foes are striving once more to topple 
it over, and to relegate our people to the rule of ignorance 
and vice, sustained by all the power of the Federal Govern- 
ment. Is this an exaggeration? Let candid and liberal 
men of all parties, throughout the length and breadth of the 
country, answer. 

If there be any who think that I am indulging in too 
much of a political harangue, let me beg them to consider, 
that not only is the anxiety of the people of our State justly 
aroused by the determination of the Administration at 
Washington to do all in its power to bring about the 
condition of things which existed prior to 1876—when the 
Prostrate State lay crushed under the heel of uneducated 
negro suffrage controlled by political adventurers and ban- 
ditti—but, furthermore, that the friends of education, for 
whom I wish to speak to-day, may well feel anxious at the 
probable set-back which that great cause is likely to have, 






305522 


should the property and intelligence of the State cease to 
control its Government and its destinies. Our able and 
zealous Superintendent of Education, Col. Hugh S. Thomp- 
son, has in his consecutive reports clearly shown how 
greatly the scope and efficiency of the public school system 
has been enlarged and increased since the combined carpet- 
bag and negro rule has been shaken off. I speak, therefore, 
in the interest of universal education in the State—in the 
interest of the elevation and enlightenment of the colored 
race—for whom the true people of South Carolina have the 
kindliest feeling, and whom, from every motive of self 
interest, no less than Christian philanthrophy, they desire 
to see elevated in the scale of humanity and fitted to enjoy 
the boon of liberty and self-government. I speak for the 
people of my native State, when I say we do not wish to 
see the colored man deprived of the right of suffrage because 
he isa colored man. But we wish to see him go through 
the probation and training and education which can alone 
enable him to exercise it intelligently. I speak for myself 
and many, at least, of the best men of the State, who are 
conservative enough to believe, and bold enough to avow, 
that universal, unqualified suffrage is an evil when exercised 
by the entire adult population of any race or any color. 
And I have “the courage of my convictions,” to say it here 
and now. I am firmly persuaded that there ought to be an 
educational qualification—or, alternatively, a property quali- 
fication, one or the other—required of every voter before he 
invades “the sanctity of the ballot-box’’ and “stuffs” it 
with a “tissue” of absurdities and frauds and falsehoods, 
the effect of which is to saddle upon the people thieves and 
scoundrels as officials and administrators of the Government, 
and fools and knaves as its law-givers? Pardon me, fellow- 
citizens, if Ispeak warmly. I cannot speak coolly at a time 
when I see plainly the handwriting on the wall, to the effect 
that the influence and power of the Central Government at 
Washington is to be exerted in a way obviously leading and 
intended to lead, to the restoration to power in our State 
of the robber and the villain. Nor can | speak with 


~ 
‘ 


philosophic composure when I read in the press, and hear 
in the courts, the wholesale denunciation and villification of 
my people. My indignation, at least, is unfeigned, if it 
seem, perhaps to some, unfitted for the present occasion. 
Who can contemplate unmoved the possibility of a return 
to the rule which might have a Moses as its exponent and 
head, and whose excesses and robberies even the ability and 
patriotic zeal and ‘‘ overpowering sense of duty” of a Melton 
might (or would) fail to restrain and pursue and punish ? 

From such a Government may God preserve us! Better 
far a return once more to military rule, an absolute Govern- 
ment, limited—by the tender mercies and sense of virtue of 

even a pro-consular Dan Sickles! 
_ “Tt is never worth while,” says Burke, “to indict a whole 
people.” Upon which the amiable and _ liberal-minded 
George Ticknor has remarked: ‘Certainly, then, it must be 
a mistake to insult a whole people, more especially if you 
wish to persuade that people at the same time to do 
something.” 

And vet this is just the very thing that Government 
prosecutors and their assistants, an intolerant party and 
mendacious press are continually doing against the South, 
and South Carolina particularly. It is natural that we 
should resent it. It is right that we should resent it. It is 
meet and proper that we should resent it. And we go be- 
fore the grand jury of public opinion throughout the 
civilized world, and ask them on that indictment to find 
~ Mo bill” 

Property and intelligence will, and ought, to control and 
manage the affairs of all States and social communities. It 
has been so, and ever will be so in the long run, in all 
civilized and prosperous countries. It is the normal condi- 
tion of civilization and the prerequisite for prosperity. And 
just so far as nations have swung from these moorings they 
have been swept out by the current of revolution into the 
stormy ocean of change and uncertainty, full of hidden rocks 
and dangerous shoals. 

Property and intelligence are inseparably connected. 


Ss 


They mutually support and are dependent upon each other. 
All history shows that the most wealthy nations have, as a 
rule, been the best educated, and, vice versa, the best educated 
the most wealthy. How, therefore, can the plainest citizen, 
the most (so called) ‘practical man” fail to see, that to make a 
people prosperous their intelligence must be developed and 
educated? And what thoughtful man need be told that 
educated minds—minds that have been imbued with the 
great ideas of the master intellects of all ages; that have 
studied the histories of the rise and progress and decline of 
great States and peoples, and made themselves acquainted 
with their laws, and arts, and civilizations—are best fitted 
to mould the legislation and shape the destinies of their own 


country? The whole civilized world is waking up to the - 


realization of the truth of Burke’s great apothegm, that 
“Education is the cheap defence of a nation.” And notably 
in our country has a prodigious impetus been given, in 
recent years, to the education of the whole people. And 
logically so. We may say ex necessitate rei. With universal 
suffrage as the very foundation stone of our political fabric, 
how essential is it that that foundation should be sound and 
capable of bearing the weight which it has to sustain. If 
every man is to vote he ought to be able to cast his vote in- 
telligently. His vote is not a mere personal possession, to 
be used for his personal interest; but a grave trust, com- 
mitted to him by his fellow-citizens, to be exercised for the 
public good. Have not his fellow-citizens—those, especially, 
whose intefests and prosperity and happiness are directly 
and profoundly aifected by his vote—some restraining 
power over his exercise of a right which they have confer- 
red, and which they may take away? The true statesman 
will not be found prating about ‘“‘¢he inalienable right of 
suffrage.” He leaves that to the demagogue, whether on 
the stump or in the halls of legislation. He will endeavor, 
by wise and prudent laws on the subject, to guard the 
sanctity of the ballot-box from ignorant and mischievous, as 
well as from “tissue” and fraudulent ballots. I am de- 
cidedly in favor of the Massachusetts or some similar system. 


a 


2 


Of course, our Northern brethren would say, were we to 
adopt such a system, that it was done for the purpose of 
excluding the negro vote. But it would really be done for 
the purpose of excluding the ignorant vote of both races. 
And it would be the most powerful stimulus we could give 
to universal education. Surely any man, black or white, 
who aspires to a voice in political affairs can, with the facili- 
ties surrounding him, learn to read and write sufficiently to 
fulfil the requirements of a reasonable and moderate law. 
But I pass from a topic belonging rather to the domain of 
the legislator than the educator (but. which, just now, is of 
painful moment to every man, woman and child in South 
Carolina) to consider some matters especially pertaining to 
the domain of education. 

There is much. difference of opinion as to whether educa- 
tion should be made compulsory. The tendency is, however, 
becoming more and more marked in that direction. In 
Prussia the compulsory system has long prevailed, and cer- 
tainly has been attended with happy results without, so far 
as I know, any counteracting disadvantages. In Frarice, in 
a modified form, the same system is now established. Even 
in England, slow to abandon or modify existing institutions, 
it is being tried on a gradually increasing scale. It seems to 
me that the argument for its adoption by us is stronger than 
in Europe, especially in monarchical countries. So long as 
every male adult has a right to vote, there is the greater 
necessity, for the sake of the common weal, that he should 
have that amount of intelligence requisite fom its proper 
exercise, and which some degree of education can alone 
give. Ifthe State can compel its citizens to pay taxes for 
the support of the Government, why may she not require 
them to pay mental tribute, as it were, for the maintenance 
of good government and good laws by the intelligent selec- 
tion of good rulers and good lawgivers? Our State, fora 
long time, very rigorously enforced her militia system, 
which required every male citizen (with a few exceptions) to 
undergo a military drilling and training. The plea on which 


such legislation was based was that every citizen ought to 
ie, 


10 


be prepared for the defence of the soil on which he lived. 
Is there less obligation on him to take his part in that 
‘“cheap defence” which Burke tells us consists in “ educa- 
tion?” Is not a general and thorough system of education 
the best means of ensuring the security and stability of 
volitical institutions, the development of the resources of 
the State and the consequent increase of its wealth and 
prosperity, and at the same time the elevation to a higher 
plane, intellectually and morally, of the whole people ? 

But whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the 
right, or the policy, of enforcing education as a duty, (just 
as the duty to pay taxes and discharge various other duties 
of citizenship is enforced,) our people are all fully agreed 
that it is the duty of the State to provide the amplest facili- 
ties for education to all who may desire to-avail themselves 
of them. “Free schools,” furnished with the best equip- 
ment attainable, are now universally demanded, by public 
opinion, in this country, and in South Carolina, in her 
changed condition, as much as in any of her sister States. 
Here and there, perhaps, an “old fogy,” or a “Bourbon” 
(not necessarily a political one,) may be found, making 
protest against ‘“‘absolutely free tuition.” But he makes no 
impression. ‘Free schools” our entire people, white and 
colored, demand; and free schools they will always have. 
And they ought to have them, because it is for the best in- 
terests of the State that they should have them. 

Macauley, in one of his speeches in Parliament, has a fine 
passage apropos to this matter. 

“<«Tf’ they say, ‘free competition is a good thing in trade, 
it must surely be a good thing in education. The supply of 
other commodities—of sugar for example—is left to adjust 
itself to the demand; and the consequence is, that we are 
better supplied with sugar than if the Government under- 
took to supply us. Why, then, should we doubt that the 
supply of instruction will, without the intervention of the 
Government, be found equal to the demand?’ 

“Never was there’ (Macauley continues) “a more false 
analogy. Whether a man is well supplied with sugar is a 


gl 


matter that concerns himself alone. But whether he is well 
supplied with instruction is a matter which concerns his 
neighbors and the State. If he cannot afford to pay for 
sugar, he must go without sugar. But it is by no means fit 
that, because he cannot afford to pay for education, he 
should go without education. Between the rich and their 
instructors there may, as Adam Smith says, be free trade. 
The supply of music masters and Italian masters may be 
left to adjust itself to the demand. But what is to become 
of the millions who are too poor to procure without as- 
sistance the services of a decent schoolmaster?” 

In addressing a society such as yours, gentlemen, whose 
object from its earliest inception, in Colonial times, has been 
the advancement of education in South Carolina, such views 
and argumentsas I have been presenting seem specially ap- 
propriate. It was to the aid of primary schools that your 
subscriptions and fees and fines were from the first applied. 
But composed, as your Association has always been, of gen- 
tlemen representing and reflecting the highest culture and 
refinement, as well asa large portion of the wealth of the 
State, it cannot limit its interest and good wishes and in- 
fluence to the furtherance of ‘‘primary school education” 
alone. You, naturally, take an interest in all that would 
advance the “higher education,” of which, in early days, 
our State was a nursery, and in whose borders scholarship 
and letters, for so long a time, found a congenial home. 
Proud as we are of our revolutionary soldiers—our Marions, 
and Sumters, and Moultries—we are not less proud of our 
Calhouns, and McDuffies, and Legares, men whose intellects 
developed, and enriched, and polished by the highest educa- 
tion, have shed an undying lustre on the name of South 
Carolina. And how greatly might this bright catalogue be 
extended! With what distinguished statesmen and jurists, 
and physicians, and divines are its ample pages filled? 
Their names are household words. I need not enumerate 
them. You know them—the country knows many oi 
them—the world knows some of them—by heart. Our 
children, and childrens’ children, will forever treasure 


19 


up their memories, and will never, willingly, let them 
die. They never will die, so long as our people remain 
worthy of the noble sires from whose loins they sprung. 
But let us beware of the danger that might consign 
them to oblivion. The mists of ignorance rising from 
the low, undrained, uncultivated, unintellectual bottoms 
may veil and obscure those giant peaks that now tower so 
grandly in the moral horizon of Carolina. Let us beware 
of the growth of that spirit of indifference to higher educa- 
tion and culture, of that miscalled “ practical philosophy ” 
that tests every thing by its proximate application and im- 
mediate value in the common avocations of life, and which 
thinks that all the objects and ends of education are satis- 
fied when it launches a young man into the world prepared 
“to make a living” and to accumulate money. A “practi- 
cal” training truly, which makes him ready, “ propter vitam 
perdere causas vivendt.” “The duties of life are more than 
life,” says Lord Bacon. Oh, that the rising youth of our 
dear old State would lay that maxim up in their hearts as 
the truest guide through life! 

{t isa sad summary which the same profound philosopher 
and thinker makes of the cycle of a people’s history, when 
he says: “In the youth of a State arms flourish; in the mid- 
dle age ofa State, learning; and then both of these together 
for a time; and in the declining age of a State mechanical 
arts and merchandise.” And Burke’s famous exclamation 
is familiar and trite: ‘“‘ The age of chivalry has passed, and 
that of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded !” 

Let us hope that these pessimist views of such great 
statesmen were colored by the times in which they lived, 
and are not to be received as unquestionable dicta. Bacon, 
living in the reign of the “wisest fool in Christendom,” 
whose pedantic “kingcraft’’ was exerted more for the 
furtherance of selfish schemes of foreign policy than for the 
advancement of his countrymen in intelligence and virtue, 
might well have thought that the “ golden age” of Europe 
had passed. Burke, in the midst of the political and social 
corruption of the reign of George III, when a Grafton had 


13 


the confidence of the King, and a Wilkes, in the name of 
Liberty, the confidence of the people, might well have be- 
lieved that a perennial “ Brazen Age’? had come. Is it too 
metaphorical and fanciful for me to say that we live in an 
age compounded and alloyed? True, yet not feudal, chivalry 
blended with reason, not sophistry; wise, economic princi- 
ples combined with the results of broad experiments, not 
petty calculations; a composite better adapted for the wear 
and tear of life—the handling and uses and currency of hu- 
manity—its intrinsic value and beauty scarcely diminished ; 
its utility greatly enhanced. 
If an Englishman can now exclaim with Tennyson: 


“JT the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of Time!” 


it is because his noble schools and seats of learning have 
made him so. Itis from Eton and Harrow and Westminster 
and Rugby —from Oxford and from Cambridge—that he 
draws those intellectual treasures ees make him in the 
truest sense “the heir of all the ages.’ 

Mr. Canning, in one of his speeches, once well reeled 
“Foreigners often ask, ‘By what means an uninterrupted 
succession of men, qualified more or less eminently for the 
performance of united parliamentary and official duties, is 
secured?’ First, I answer (with the prejudices, perhaps, of 
Eton and Oxford,) that we owe it to our system of public 
Seltools’ andy mniversities.” “* ~~ *) * Tt is in Sher public 
schools and universities that the youth of England are, by 
a discipline which shallow judgments have sometimes at- 
tempted to undervalue, prepared for the duties of public 
life. There are rare and splendid exceptions, to be sure; 
but in my conscience I believe that England would not be 
what she is without her system of public education, and that 
no other country can become what England is without the 
advantages of such a system.” 

This is strong testimony, and from a remarkable man, who 
rose to the highest position of distinction—the premiership 
of England—without the adventitious aids of birth or family 
influence, solely by the force of his own talents, trained and 


14 ” 


educated in such higher institutions of learning as Eton and 
Oxford. 

If such be the influence and results flowing from higher 
education in England—our “ Mother country,” as many of 
us still fondly call her—from whom we have derived not 
only our language, laws and ideas of constitutional liberty, 
but our social manners, habits and modes of thought; why 
should not the same results follow in our country, from the 
higher development of education among our people? And 
we may congratulate ourselves that South Carolina is, at 
last, appreciating the importance of rehabilitating her old 
seat of learning, which, like Oxford and Cambridge, (how- 
ever /ongo intervallo,) may prepare her youth, “ by a disci- 
pline which shallow judgments have sometimes attempted 
to undervalue,” for the duties of life. 

The assembling and mixing together of the young men 
from all parts of the State within the walls of a common 
Alma Mater ; broad and catholic in its aims and spirit; un- 
sectienal, and “ undenominational ;” where the most lasting 
and intimate ties of friendship will be formed, while the 
most thorough curricudum of the most valuable studies is 
pursued—must produce wholesome and valuable fruit—fruit 
cheaply purchased by the most liberal support which the 
Legislature may extend for its production. 

Moreover, what true son of Carolina, mindful of her past 
reputation, can be willing to see her young men flocking 
yearly to schools of learning, outside of her own borders, in 
pursuit ofthat higher education which, without a State 
institution, liberally equipped and supported as only a S/ate 
institution can be, he would vainly seek at home? Let us 
go on then, and perfect our system of universal and higher 
education until, in the words of Prof. Huxley, we can say of 
it truly, that it is “a great educational ladder, with one end 
in the gutter and the other in the university.” 

And now, gentlemen, it is time that I should cease to tax 
your attention and to fatigue your patience. How meagerly 
and imperfectly I have executed the task which you 
honored me by entrusing to me no one can be more con- 





= 


« 
os 


15 


. 


scious than myself. I have done little more than, by hold- 
ing up to view the anomolous and mortifying conditions 
under which we see ‘ voting by ballot” and “trial by jury” 
carried on at present in our midst, to show the absolut: 
necessity of gexcral education, if we would rescue our poor 
old State from the senseless and cruel tyranny—the tragical 
“farce” and real ‘‘fraud” of universal uneducated suffrage 
and the resulting rule of ignorance and pauperism. I have 
rather thrown out hints than endeavored to elaborate a 
systematic discourse. I have rather given you some food 
for thought, than presented any very well digested thought 

of my own, and trust I may be allowed, in the language of 
Horace, to say: 


s 
“si quid novisti rectius istis, 
Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.” 





Nor do I know any better thought with which to concliide 
an address on education than the memorable injunction 
which Thomas Jefferson, “the Father of Americal De- 
mocracy,” may be said to have bequeathed to his country 
men: ‘“ He who expects to see an uneducated people remair 
a free people, expects to see that which never has been and 
never can be.” 





